Overview of Recent Developments in Flood Mitigation Techniques with Respect to Indian Subcontinent

Number of natural calamities like earthquake, cyclone, landslide, pandemics etc are known to have devastating impact on human life but flood hazards are severe and frequent in nature. Every year, floods strike many parts of the world and result in huge loss of life and property. The trends in flood damages have been increasing exponentially mainly due to growing population, investments in flood affected areas and changes in land-use land cover patterns in upstream regions. Climate change is also playing a major role in increased number of flood events so it is also likely that flooding would be more frequent and widespread in future due to the extreme weather events perceived to be induced by changing climate. In addition, the social and environmental changes are further expected to increase the risk and cost of these natural disasters. This paper presents the overview of different factors related directly or indirectly with flood risk assessment, different strategies adopted by Government for mitigation of flood, flood damage statistics, impact on social, economic and infrastructural perspective.